


clarity

by valety



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff, Future Fic, Glasses, Humour, Other, POV Second Person, Post-Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 11:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6801217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valety/pseuds/valety
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asriel gets glasses. Chara notices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	clarity

**Author's Note:**

> k so I was thinking about how toriel has glasses, and I feel like basically everyone's in agreement that asriel’s sense of style is Trustworthy Niceboy, and what’s more trustworthy-looking than glasses??? anyway I've been ruminating on this concept for a while and then this happened
> 
> this probably isn't the most realistic/accurate depiction of dealing with vision impairment bc I just ran with my own experiences so I mean don't worry about the details too much. the point is...asriel with glasses

You’ve been in class for about fifteen minutes when you realize that you can’t see the board.

The lesson is supposed to be about monster adaptation in human industrial environments, but instead of paying attention, you’re squinting at the aforementioned board in an effort to decipher the diagram the teacher’s drawn on it. Never mind that you already _know_ all of this. Never mind that the teacher’s actually in the middle of explaining said diagram _right now_ and you could simply listen and be taking notes if you wanted to. The lesson doesn’t matter; what matters is what your burgeoning headache implies.

With a sigh, you begin to rub your temples.

You’re no idiot. You know what it means to suddenly find yourself squinting and getting headaches when you try to read. Still, you say nothing, privately resolving to make a conscious effort to avoid rubbing your eyes in public.

The thing is, you and Chara have been watching a ton of human movies lately. Frisk had suggested that you do so in order to catch up on everything you’d missed while you were dead, and while you'd thought at first that they just wanted an excuse to make _every_ night Movie Night, they’ve definitely been helpful. You’ve been learning a _lot_ about human society, more than Chara had ever willingly told you, and in your opinion, the single most important thing you’ve learned so far is that anybody wearing glasses has to take them off in the end in order to become cool and attractive and win the attention of the love interest. That means you’re already at least _moderately_ cool and that getting glasses would turn you into a dork.

You can’t afford to regress at this stage, not when you’ve only just managed to get Chara to stop implying that you need help crossing the street. If you get glasses now, they will _literally never stop teasing you ever._

You make it about three weeks before anybody notices.

It’s Frisk who winds up catching you. The frustrating thing is that you’re not even sure _how,_ but whatever. Frisk works in mysterious ways. It’s best not to question them.

It happens in art, one of the few classes that you have together. As they’re walking by, they toss a small, crumpled-up piece of paper at you. You catch it and they smile enigmatically before continuing on to their easel.

You unfold the paper. Frisk’s handwriting is too small and crabbish for you to be able to make it out properly, and so you bring it closer to your eyes.

_If you’re having trouble reading this, then you should get your eyes checked <3 <3 <3 _

You drop the note as though burned. When you lift your head, Frisk is beaming at you from across the room and you have to remind yourself that you’re not supposed to want to kill them anymore.

(You think you’d probably be the teeniest bit justified in this situation.)

You decide to channel your irritation into your art and wind up with a canvas covered in a horrific red and black scrawl instead of the self-portrait you’re _supposed_ to be working on. The teacher praises you for taking the abstract route and you smile politely and thank them while vaguely fantasizing about shoving a paintbrush into their eye socket. Only not really, because you’re good and you don’t think about things like that anymore.

When you get home that afternoon, your mother tells you that you have an appointment with the optometrist the next day.

 _“Traitor,”_ you hiss at Frisk when you pass them in the kitchen later.

They wink and sign _you should take better care of those pretty eyes of yours,_ but you’re spared from having to come up with a response by Chara grabbing you from behind and dragging you away.

“Glasses, huh?” they say after forcing you onto the sofa in the living room. They plop down beside you, curling their hands into circles and pressing them against your eyes, as though trying to envision how you’ll look bespectacled.

They sigh heavily. “You’re going to look like a nerd,” they report in a faux-regretful tone of voice. 

“I am  _not,”_ you say, tugging yourself away from them. “I’m gonna get a designer pair. They’ll be _stylish.”_

“You’ll still look like a nerd,” Chara answers with a smile. They pat your cheek, the way they always used to whenever trying to soothe you out of one of your crying fits as a child. This time, you don’t pull away, because you like it when they’re gentle with you, even if it’s just for one of their confusing jokes. But then Chara suddenly pinches you and you jab them in the ribs where they’re most ticklish and any tenderness between you two is lost in favour of an impromptu wrestling match that only ends when Frisk appears and drapes themselves dramatically over the coffee table in a bid for attention.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

You decide to go to your appointment after all. It’s probably for the best; your mother ends up surprising you with a ride and you’re terrible at impromptu bluffing. You’re not sure what you would have said if you’d been planning on skipping only to end up running into her unexpectedly. 

You undergo the examination and the optometrist offers you a diagnosis that you don’t care to understand. You tune him out. When the explanation’s finished, you accept the prescription paper and follow your mother to the front of the office. The gorgon at the counter is apparently ecstatic to be able to serve the royal family, even though the monarchy’s sort of dead, and with her help, you finally settle on the least-offensive pair that you can find.

(You’d been hoping for something cool, like a pair with spikes and tinted lenses, but the best you can find is a simple pair of black rectangular frames. _Boring_.)

“Do you like them?” your mother asks as you examine yourself in the mirror.

“They’re okay,” you say. But then she raises her eyebrows in that _I know there’s more to it than that_ sort of way, and you break and ask, “Do they make me look like a dork?”

“Of course not. You look very handsome,” your mother says, patting your head. “And I have glasses too, you know. Do you think _I_ look like a dork?”

_NO SELF-RESPECTING TEENAGER WANTS TO LOOK LIKE THEIR PARENTS, MOTHER._

“Good point,” you say with a smile. “I guess they’re not so bad.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They’re ready in two weeks. When you go to pick them up, the gorgon at the counter hands you a case and a little bottle of lens cleaner, and when you leave the office, you’re officially Someone With Glasses.

Initially, everything is so sharp and in-focus that your head hurts even more than it had before. Your eyes adjust quickly, however, and by the time you make it to the car, you don’t feel quite as dizzy.

Everything is _crisper,_ you realize. You feel as though you can see every individual leaf shimmering on the trees as you’re driving past, and you guess _that_ part’s kinda cool, even if the glasses themselves are lame.

Still, as you draw closer and closer to your house, your heart sinks more and more and you slump miserably in the front seat.

You should’ve eaten more carrots as a child. Chara had told you once that carrots improve your eyesight, but you’d just assumed that they were lying. They’d kept insisting that if you ate enough of them you’d be able to see through walls, which had sounded pretty fake, and so you’d assumed they’d been lying about the entire thing, but you shouldn’t have taken that chance.

“Sit up straight,” your mother says. You sit up straight.

As the car pulls into the driveway, you take one final look at yourself in the rear-view window.

You don’t look... _awful,_ you suppose. It’s not like the glasses are particularly ugly or anything. You just look…different.

You get out of the car and make your way up the front steps. The door flies open before you can even place your fingers on the knob.

 _“YOU HAVE GLASSES!”_ Chara screams.

You push past them, trying to ignore the expression of unabashed delight on their face. Your mother chuckles softly behind you.

It already feels like the stupid things are sliding down your face. You stop at the hallway mirror to examine your reflection once more, adjusting the frames slightly.

As you do so, Chara’s head pops up behind your shoulder. They’re wearing an enormous, toothy grin that makes your heart plummet even further.

 _“Look_ at you!” they cry, draping themselves over your shoulders and beaming at your shared reflection. “You’re so _handsome!_ Not to mention _intelligent-looking_ and _cool…_ ”

“Cut it out,” you say, feeling even more irritable than before. You shrug them off and Chara bursts out laughing.

 _“Frisk_!” they cry, disappearing into the living room. “Asriel has _glasses!”_

That night at dinner, they spend the entire meal asking “Asriel and his glasses” to please pass this or that. You do so reluctantly, scowling at them as they smirk at you from across the table. When they bump into you while washing the dishes, they ask you and your glasses to please excuse them, and when they snatch up the remote in order to switch on some legal drama, they ask if you and your glasses mind letting them have the TV.

“Knock it off,” you tell them for what must be the hundredth time.

“Chara, really,” your mother scolds from where she’s grading in the corner. “There is no need to give Asriel such a hard time.”

“I’m not giving him a hard time!” Chara sing-songs, voice bright. “I _love_ his glasses! I think they make him look _dashing!_ ”

Your face grows hot. “Not _funny,_ Chara.”

“Who said I was trying to be funny? Can’t a person give an honest compliment every now and then?”

 _“You_ can’t,” you mutter under your breath, low enough that your mother can’t hear.

Chara giggles, then claps their hands against the sides of your face. They forcibly tilt your head so that you’re looking directly at them. Their eyes dance as they meet yours.

“How do I look?” they ask. “You can see me clearly now, right?”

“I could _always_ see you clearly,” you say, cheeks still warm. You pull their hands away. “You look the same as always.”

(But actually, they look…sharper. You can see the faint scattering of freckles on their nose, the flyaway strands of copper hair sticking up all over their head, the rust of their eyes.)

“Can I try them on?” Chara asks. Without waiting for a response, they nimbly pluck off your frames and slip them over their own eyes instead.

“Holy fuck these are big,” they say, blinking. “You have a gigantic head.”

“That’s not fair, I can’t see how you look in them,” you whine, ignoring the comments about your head. But that’s not exactly true; your vision is blurry, but not so much so that you can’t see how the heavy frames accentuate their already unsettlingly large eyes.

“What are _you_ staring at?” Chara demands, voice suddenly cool.

You’re too flustered to speak. And with a funny little smile, Chara returns your glasses to you, saying “I grant thee the gift of sight,” before drifting away.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They become merciless after that.

Chara’s never been exactly _kind._ Not the way most people are, anyway. Their kindness can be difficult to understand, and usually, it doesn’t make any sense at all until after the fact. Still, there’s a notable difference between their usual teasing and the teasing that ensues upon you getting glasses. 

The biggest difference is that it doesn’t _stop._ They call you the Professor and constantly attempt to steal your glasses so that they can try them on themselves. They corner you in the hallway and snatch them off of your face, telling you to guess how many fingers they’re holding up behind their back and ignoring you when you try to explain that that’s not how the test is supposed to work. They constantly lavish you with bizarre almost-compliments that you’re absolutely p _ositive_ are sarcastic—comments about how mature you look, how intelligent and handsome, and it almost makes you want to cry, except not really, because you’re a grown-up and don’t do that anymore.

Chara’s careful to limit their teasing to when nobody’s around, but even when your mom or Frisk is nearby, forcing them to remain silent, Chara _stares_ at you. They do so with that unnerving half-smile on their face, the smile that you know is not entirely a smile, but which isn’t necessarily a frown, either, and _why_ does Chara have so many different smiles? Why can’t they be easier to understand?

“Asriel,” Chara says one day when you’re at the bookstore with them (because despite everything, you still like Chara an awful lot and will go anywhere they ask you to). “What’s it like being the most devastatingly sophisticated-looking person in the room?”

 _That’s it,_ you think darkly as Chara drops yet another book into your arms with a smile.

The next morning, you “accidentally” knock the glasses off your dresser and “accidentally” step on them when getting out of bed and suddenly the glasses are “accidentally” broken and oh look how unfortunate you guess you’ll have to get another pair.

You show your mother the twisted frames and she says, “The lenses do not appear to be damaged. A new pair should be unnecessary. If you take them to the optometrist, I believe they can repair them for you.”

“I was thinking I should get contacts this time, actually,” you reply, silently cursing yourself for not having destroyed them more thoroughly. “I mean, I’m pretty clumsy. With contacts, I won’t have to worry about dropping them or anything.”

Your mother frowns, returning your mangled frames. “If you would prefer to have contact lenses, then you may get them,” she says. “But because contact lenses are more expensive in the long run, you must pay for them yourself.”

You nod and say “I understand”, giving her your best smile. She smiles in return, then resumes marking.

Your head is already starting to ache a little without the stupid glasses, and so you grab your coat soon afterwards, thinking that it sure would be convenient to have the problem solved within a day. Hopefully getting contacts won’t take very long, you think as you’re buttoning it up, and then Chara suddenly declares “I’m going with you” and you jump because you have no idea where the heck they came from.

You’ve never been very good at saying no to Chara. That’s how you end up heading into town together. You invited Frisk to come along as well, but they refused, seeing you and Chara off with a mysterious smile and a thumbs up. Chara had returned the gesture with an equally mysterious smile and you were yet again left feeling excluded from their weird little We Once Shared a Body club.

“So. Contacts, huh?” Chara asks as they drag you in the general direction of the optometrist’s.

(You’ve told them at least a dozen times that your vision isn’t _that_ bad, that you don’t need them holding your hand and guiding you around as though you’re blind, but they don’t seem to be listening.)

“Um, yeah,” you say.

“Don’t those sound kinda scary, though? You have to stick them in your eye.”

“They sound a _little_ scary, I guess,” you say. “But it’s better than risking breaking my glasses again. I’m sure I’ll get used to them soon enough.”

You don’t really care about having to stick them in your eye. You’re too busy wondering if you’ll be able to get a coloured pair that’ll make your eyes look pure black or tiger-striped or something.

“I bet they’re painful, though,” Chara says. Their grip on your hand tightens, as if in emphasis.

“Uh,” you say.

“And it gets really warm here sometimes, doesn’t it? I knew somebody who had contacts, but then it got _really_ hot and they melted onto his eyeballs and he went blind. You don’t want to go blind, do you?”

“Um,” you say.

“You shouldn’t get them,” Chara declares decisively, as though it’s even their decision to make. “Just get your glasses fixed. Contacts are too dangerous.”

“Chara,” you say, a little hesitantly. “Why don’t you want me to get contacts?”

“Are you stupid or something?” they snap, clutching your hand even tighter, not looking at you as they drag you down the street. “I just _said_ that they’re _dangerous._ Learn to _listen,_ Asriel.”

They say nothing else for the rest of the walk, leaving you free to think.  

By the time you reach the optometrist’s, you’ve come to a decision.

Chara sits in the waiting area with a scowl as you speak to the optician. When you finally rejoin them, they say, “So are you getting your death lenses?

“No,” you reply, sitting down beside them (the chair is just the slightest bit too small for you and you really have to curl into yourself to fit, how embarrassing). “They’re going to fix the frames after all.”

For a moment, Chara is silent.

“Oh,” they say at last, voice stiff. “Well. That’s good, then.”

It doesn’t take very long for the frames to be repaired at all. Surprisingly enough, you find that you almost missed wearing them. It feels right for them to be sitting on your snout once more, even if they occasionally feel as though they’re slipping.

Chara is silent for the better part of the walk home. You keep waiting for them to _say_ something, to comment on how it’s good that you listened to them or on how you still look like a dweeb or _somet_ hing, but they don’t.

You decide that’s proof enough that your budding suspicion may have something to it after all, and as you’re walking by a park—the flowerbeds and fountains kind, not the slides and swingsets kind—you say, “Hey, do you mind if we stop for a moment?”

“Why?” Chara demands, voice sharp.

“My eyes need to readjust, I think,” you lie. “I’m getting a little dizzy.”

Chara heaves a sigh so enormous that you half expect it to blow you away, but then they shrug, and a moment later the two of you are sitting side-by-side on a park bench. Chara is staring straight ahead in what you think is probably a very intentional effort to avoid your gaze. You yourself are buying time by pretending to polish your glasses as you try and think of what to say.

“Um,” you say, when you finally replace them. “I’ve been meaning to ask, but…what do you think of these, anyway? They’re not too nerdy, are they?”

“They look fine,” Chara answers stiffly, still not looking at you.

“So they _don’t_ look nerdy?” you press.

“Well, they do, but…”

A pause.

“It’s the kind of nerdiness that suits you, I guess.”                                           

Another pause.

“I mean, they make you look like a student council president or something,” Chara continues, and yup, they’re babbling now. They always babble when they’re feeling flustered. “It feels like you’re wearing a sweater vest even though you’re _not._ Little old ladies would trust you to carry their groceries without worrying about you dumping them in the sewer, the way they do with me. They still make you look _dorky_ , of course, but it...it works in your favour. I mean…”

You feel yourself beginning to smile, anxiety ebbing away and leaving only a faint pulse of certainty. You feel as though you’re on the verge of solving a puzzle that’s had you stumped for days. It’s a wonderfully satisfying feeling.

“You don’t think I look handsome?” you ask, thinking back to the day you first came home with them. “Or intelligent, or cool?”

Chara immediately falls silent. They stare stiffly ahead of themselves, fists clenched tightly on their lap.

You begin to calculate the odds of you getting punched if you try to make them look at you the way they’ve done to you so many times in the past. But before you can make your move, Chara turns around themselves, and, blushing a furious shade of scarlet, they lift their hand. For once, they don’t pluck your glasses off. Instead, they merely run a finger along the frames, tracing the edges all the way to the rims.

(You know that your expression is almost definitely one of horrible, humiliating enchantment, but _you can’t help it.)_

“So you like them, then,” you say, just to confirm, although given the way Chara’s fingers are now lingering on your jawline, you think you probably already know the answer. 

They kiss you and you decide that yeah, the answer was probably obvious.

“You really _are_ an idiot,” Chara says when you break apart. They’re scowling, cheeks still flushed. “I told you at least athousand times that I liked them.”

“I thought you were being sarcastic,” is your feeble reply.   

Chara rolls their eyes. “If I thought they looked stupid, I’d have _told_ you,” they say, sounding exasperated.

You think, _oh_. Yeah, that sounds about right. And then you can’t think anymore at all because they’re kissing you again and you don’t know how the heck you’re supposed to concentrate on anything when you’re _finally kissing Chara._

Or when Chara’s kissing _you_ , you guess, but whatever. It’s all the same in the end.

You wind up kissing in the park for a long, long time, until finally Chara says, “We should probably stop publicly shaming your parents and get home already.”

“All right,” you agree. “But we have to do this again sometime.”

“Only if I feel like it,” they retort. But they hold your hand the entire way home, and you can't help but feel victorious, even though you're still not entirely sure what the challenge even was. But in the end, you guess it doesn’t really matter.


End file.
